Furniture Unger

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Furniture Unger
legal form Formerly limited liability company ; Extinguished in 1999
Seat Goslar
Number of employees <4000 (1996)
sales <1,230,000,000 DM (1996)
Branch Furniture trade
Website www.moebel-unger.com ( Memento from December 13, 2004 in the Internet Archive )

Möbel Unger was a German furniture dealer based in Goslar .

history

In 1875 Friedrich Unger founded the furniture trade in Blankenburg from a carpentry business . After that, his son-in-law Otto Kramer continued to run the business as the owner and, with his own workshops for interior fittings, developed Unger into a well-known outfitter and ducal purveyor to the court throughout the Harz region.

In 1932, Kramer's only daughter married Felix Tessner, who joined the Unger company. In 1945, after the end of the war, the British made him District Administrator of Blankenburg. After the Blankenburg district became part of the Soviet occupation zone, the Tessners moved to Braunlage . There Tessner built a new residual circle in the British occupation zone.

In 1948 the furniture trade started again in a sales room in Braunlage, initially through compensation: felled wood against furniture. In the next two years, stores were built in the neighboring towns of Vienenburg and Schladen . In 1954 Tessner acquired a department store with an area of ​​800 m² in Goslar, the other small shops were closed. In 1963, due to his advanced age, Tessner brought his 16-year-old son Hans-Joachim into the company and granted him full power of attorney after declaring he had reached the age of majority .

From 1964, branches were opened in Braunschweig and Hanover . In 1966 Hans-Joachim Tessner became general partner and majority shareholder. Möbel Unger came to Europe furniture membership through the takeover of the furniture house Hankel in Kassel , which provided further supplier and condition overviews. In addition, a general contract was concluded with the Real Kauf markets. In this way, the exclusive rights to equip the furniture departments in all planned North German markets could be secured.

In 1969 Hans-Joachim's older brother Horst joined the company, first as an employee and later as a partner. With the opening of the first furniture department in Real-Kauf-Markt Hannover-Linden, an explosive development began. In 1975 Möbel Unger celebrated its centenary. The celebration took place in the presence of the 84-year-old Felix Tessner, whose sons had meanwhile generated 80 million DM in sales. The total sales area of ​​the 15 branches in Northern Germany was almost 45,000 square meters. Not only Hans-Joachim Tessner's parents were involved, his brother Horst was also part of the management.

In 1978 the Real-Kauf / Unger shopping center was completed in Goslar in the Gutenbergstrasse industrial park. By 1985 Möbel Unger GmbH had developed into the largest branch company in Northern Germany with annual sales of over DM 320 million. Hans-Joachim Tessner wanted to implement the successful concept nationwide, so he took over his brother's 25 percent stake and brought the Unger shares as a contribution in kind against the granting of 16 percent shareholder shares in the rapidly expanding Schaper hypermarket group (Real-Kauf, C + C markets). On January 1st, 1986 Möbel Unger was integrated into the Schaper Group.

Hans-Joachim Tessner became managing director at Schaper-KG and remained chairman of the management of Möbel Unger. In 1990 Tessner sold 49 percent of the Möbel-Unger shares to Asko , to which the Schaper group also belonged in the meantime.

In 1992 Metro took over Asko and with it Unger. The metro provided for Hans-Joachim Tessner to carry out further tasks in the Metro-Asko network. However, he refused and resigned as Chairman of the Management Board on March 31, 1993. Tessner remained connected to the Unger company through a consultancy agreement. At this point in time, the annual turnover was 1.3 billion DM. With 50 stores and a total of over 60 branches, Unger was the largest furniture chain in Germany.

Metro later integrated the ailing Massa furniture stores into the Unger Group. Unger was never able to recover from this action. In 1996, 400 employees had to be laid off across Germany, most of them at the headquarters in Goslar.

In 1997 the logistics division was spun off from Möbel Unger GmbH, and USL - Unger Service und Logistik GmbH was created. On July 1st , 1997, Erich Kellerhals Möbel Unger took over and handed over the logistics division to the forwarding company Peter Amberger. Kellerhals split Unger into smaller and smaller parts of the company. Each branch became an "independent" company, the real estate was outsourced and the branches had to pay rent for the sales areas from now on. After just a few months, one branch after another was in the red.

In 1998, all branch managers of the stores commissioned a "new" company to deliver their orders. The USL had lost its only client and with it the basis of its business. The US (Unger Service GmbH) was now responsible for the logistics. In 1999 the last branch closed. In 1999 the TEssner-JOachim-Gruppe was founded in Goslar. The TEJO living worlds were created in four former Unger houses.

Web links

Sources and individual references

  • Book: Goslar through the ages
  1. An era is coming to an end: The chairman of the Unger management, Hans-Joachim Tessner, resigns, ( Memento from January 1st, 2012 in the Internet Archive )
  2. moebel-unger.com: Company history ( Memento from February 1, 2008 in the Internet Archive )